The ability to share recommendations with others has evolved well beyond just passing along a recommendation by word of mouth. Many recommendation options are now available that may include among others methods: sending a recommendation to one or more persons via email, texting, instant message, or posting a recommendation on a social networking site. For example, a recommender may want to recommend a movie that the recommender has just finished watching online. The recommendation may be sent to a friend in an email or the recommender might post the recommendation to a social networking site. Although convenient, these methods have drawbacks that may result in the recipient not taking advantage of the recommendation.
Drawbacks may include recommendations that are lost or forgotten by the recipient, or where the intended recipient may not have viewed the recommendation. For example, recommendations sent in an email may end up in an inbox cluttered with junk mail and other non-related messages. Then to later use the email containing the recommendation, the recipient may need to search the inbox to find the recommendation. In another scenario involving email, the recipient's mailbox may become so overwhelmed by the number of emails containing recommendations that the recipient may be unable or unwilling to keep up with the volume. In another situation concerning social media, recommendations posted to a social networking site may quickly become stale as new postings are made, and those who occasionally log into the site may not see the recommendation.